Review "Through a glass, darkly"

Some information

Title: Through a glass, darkly

Author: Jostein Gaarder

Pages: 161

Genre: philosophy

Published: 1993

Publisher: Dolphin Paperback (1999)

My Scource: Boekenfestijn (Gent)

My score on Goodreads: 3 stars

Covertext

It's almost Christmas. Cecilia lies sick in bed as her family bustle around her to make her last Christmas as special as possible. Cecilia has cancer. An angel steps through her window. So begins a spirited and engaging series of conversations between Cecelia and her angel. As the sick girl thinks about her life and prepares for her death, she changes subtly, in herself and in her relationships with her family. Jostein Gaarder is a profoundly optimistic writer, who writes about death with wisdom, compassion and an enquiring mind. 'Through a Glass, Darkly' will not only bring comfort to the bereaved. It will move and amaze everyone who reads it.

My review

Before I started reading this book, I knew I could expect lots and lots of philosophic thoughts in a book by Jostein Gaarder. I knew it would make me think about things I will never understand and maybe even don't want to understand. Nevertheless I started reading this little book "Through a glass, darkly".

Though the story is a little dark and sad, there are some deep thoughts in it. Most of these thought are really Christian ideas about heaven and God. I believe that non-Christian people won't like this book at all because God is omnipresent in it. 

I'm not sure I liked the book. It certainly made me think about some things but the "big" problem is I don't know what to think about afterlife and heaven and that's what the book keeps talking about.

In this story we meet Cecelia, a girl who's terminally ill. She can only lay in her bed and is too sick to celebrate Christmas, her favorite time of the year. While Cecelia is in bed and dreams about trees, presents and Christmasfood, she meets the angel Ariel. Ariel is a funny angel whose presence is appreciated a lot by Cecelia. She likes talking to him about heaven and he likes to learn new things about people. Cecelia wants to know how it is to be an angel, to float, to know God,... and Ariel can't wait to hear how it feels when you're made of flesh and blood, dream, feel pain,...Towards the end of Cecelia's life, Ariel visits her more and more so when Cecelia leaves the world her family and friends live in, she's already used to some things in heaven and isn't afraid of it anymore...

Not bad, but not entirely my thing too...